LawProse Lessons

Many stylists avoid this phrasal preposition on grounds that it displaces too many ordinary, down-to-earth, single words: about <a rule about something>, at <surprised at how quickly>, by <surprised by the number>, for <same rules for individual taxpayers>, into <inquired into the problem>, of <unsure of the rule>, on <agree on a deadline>, to <the […]

Reviewing your own prose for improvements is a cognitively challenging task. You’re trying to spot problems—wherever they might lurk—and fix them. If you’re a self-editor with at least moderate skills, you’ll do better in more than one go. The task entails repetition. The challenge is to see your piece a little differently each time. Here’s

When will clarity come? We hope it’s when you arrive on the scene—when you begin writing about whatever it is. For many legal writers, that’s just not the case. They probably don’t understand the reader–writer relationship, in which the reader’s interests are paramount. They may lack the skill of empathy—or perhaps just the skill of

What’s the great secret of writing style? Having something to say—and saying it clearly. You don’t say something because you want to write. That’s backward. You write because you want to say something. You have something to declare. Legal writers would do better work if they worried much more in the first instance about what

At LawProse, while writing a federal appellate brief over the past two weeks, we’ve been reminded of Boone Pickens (1928–2019). Why? He liked to say that a fool with a plan can beat a genius without one. We believe that. We had a plan for this brief—meaning we had an outline with point headings. We

Before pressing “send” on an e-mail message, tweet, or social-media post, it’s worth pausing to ask yourself some questions: ● Have you been completely truthful? ● Have you said all that you need to say? ● Have you been appropriately diplomatic and fair? Once you’ve answered those questions affirmatively, read the message once more for

Is we the people (or, in the Constitution, We the People) a set phrase that cannot be varied according to the grammar? Is it invariably we the people, or should we make it us the people when the phrase functions as the object of a verb or a preposition? We the people need to know; it’s

We hear a lot about brevity. I once knew a partner in a law firm who filed a one-word reply: “Nonsense!” Then “Respectfully submitted,” etc. That’s doubtless unduly truncated for 999 out of 1,000 situations. Yet brevity matters. Not if it’s insufficient, but only if it adequately says what needs saying without an extra word.

On Tuesday, a legal giant died: Thomas M. Reavley of Houston, who was a Fifth Circuit judge for 41 years and a Texas Supreme Court justice for 7. You can read his obituaries [here] and [here]. Two years after I finished my clerkship with Judge Reavley, he wrote the foreword to my first book—which has been carried through

It’s surprising how often advocates say a court should do something and then fail to adequately orient their readers to their arguments. Three pitfalls pervade modern advocacy. The most serious is just launching into a discussion. “Jenkins erroneously relies on McCallister v. Blaine.” Talk, talk, talk. No signposts. Readers feel as if they’re drifting at sea.

You might think you have enough to worry about today. But have you thought about how to say the word that seems to be on everybody’s lips? We may as well get it straight: the traditional way to pronounce electoral is /ee-lek-tuh-ruhl/—with stress on the second syllable. It corresponds to electorate. It’s preferably not /ee-lek-tor-uhl/, nor is it

Many legal writers are oblivious of an important secret of style: in wording a sentence, an emphatic word or phrase should fall at the end. Next time a piece of writing bores you, examine it closely. The writer is probably ending sentences with mundane information or arcana. That’s deathly. Consider two brief passages: ● Reynolds’s

My father dreams of “good grammar” once again being taught in schools. He thinks it to be part of the American dream: an aspiration available to everyone. But “good grammar” in the eyes of one person is, in the eyes of another, unacceptable intolerance toward linguistic variation. So a consensus in educational approach seems unlikely.

My 90-year-old father, bless him, got upset yesterday upon reading a Washington Post piece saying that the Trump campaign is careening toward election day. He was incensed because he thought it should have said careering toward election day. Career, you see, has traditionally meant “to move wildly at full speed,” while careen has meant “to tip to one side while moving slowly.” He

The modes of argument are as old as civilization: the ancient Greeks and Romans devised names for various rhetorical devices. Appeal to the pocketbook? The technical term is argumentum ad crumenam. Appeal to pity? It’s argumentum ad misericordiam. Use of rebuke or reproach? It’s epiplexis. A totally unsupported assertion? It’s an ipse dixit. The invocation of a looming catastrophe?

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was known for her clear, powerful prose. She learned how to write—how to write really well—from two undergraduate teachers at Cornell: Robert E. Cushman and Vladimir Nabokov. That’s right. In a 2006 interview with Bryan A. Garner, Justice Ginsburg explained that Nabokov “was a man in love with the sound of

Plain English is nobody’s mother tongue. You must work for it. You must learn to write “before” and “after” instead of the nearly ubiquitous “prior to” and “subsequent to.” In law, we’re besieged by bloated language. Unless you work tirelessly to simplify, you end up becoming just another purveyor of needless complexity and obfuscation. Take this 22-word